버지니아 울프와 포스트 휴머니즘

Abstract

Virginia Woolf and Post Humanism Im-Soo Ahn (Kwandong University) Virginia Woolf has been spotlighted recently as the god-mother of feminism. It is true that she has affirmed woman's rights in saying that they must be extended beyond household affairs and that women should share the same social status as men. Her novels continuously demand new ways of appreciation. One of those new aspects stems from the fact that her novels can be read from a post-human point of view. A big progress was made in the fields of science and technology since the 19th century, thus bringing human beings convenience and a comfortable lifestyle. And yet the progress in civilization caused pressure for autonomy and individuality. The immediate response to this was the realization that we should maintain the dignity of human beings apart from the violence of science. This is the starting point of post-humanism. Woolf seemed to be very intentional in including the conception of human nature into her novels. Characters in her novels perceive a unity of humanity only at the moments when they feel moments of being. Lily Briscoe in To the Lighthouse feels a moment of her existence looking at the boat on which Lamsay family was crossing the bay. She feels as if she was watching the last moments of their fates. In Mrs. Dalloway, as Sir William told Mrs. Dalloway that a man named Septimus committed suicide, Mrs. Dalloway was thinking about death for a few moments in the middle of her party, but she didn't feel she was connected to that war hero except for her fear that the sad news might damage her party and make her guests feel grave. The Waves might be more closely connected to post-humanism. Bernard was talking of the gradual coming together, running into one, acceleration and unification at the end of the novel. And we are confronted with Bernard's apocalyptic vision of a civilization lacking the unification of his previous assertion. Consequently, Woolf's novels are regarded to be containing seeds of post- humanism when viewed from Derrida's perspective. These seeds may also subvert and undermine any attempts in building a common human essence. These warning elements are clearly visible in the opposition between Virginia Stephen's wholeness of human beings and the German raiders in Moments of Being, between the revelation of Lily Briscoe on Mrs. Ramsay's lawn and the hateful atmosphere soaking the discarded remnants of the Ramsay family in the boat.